Abstract - Polycrystalline
ice can accommodate large amounts of intracrystalline plastic deformation
and in so doing develops specific flow characteristics and crystallographic
preferred orientations. Ice flow at the scale of an ice crystal is dominated
by the anisotropic nature of the crystal, with its dominant slip system
in the basal plane. Polar ice tends to develop a preferred bulk fabric
in response to its stress, strain rate and temperature history as it ages
in cold ice sheets. Deformation is localised at the base of ice sheets,
so the crystallographic fabric becomes progressively more pervasive with
depth, with preferred vertical c-axis fabrics. This means that the anisotropic
behaviour during flow is also manifested at scales larger than the ice
grains as ice becomes progressively harder to compress vertically, and
easier to shear horizontally with the development of contrasting brittle-ductile
regimes.
Time-lapse images photographed
through an optical microscope are presented which demonstrate intracrystalline
processes associated with the deformation of granular ice aggregates in
either a pure shear or simple shear. Sequences show that contemporaneous
with these processes are dynamic recrystallisation, which involves nucleation
of equiaxed grains, the motion of grain boundaries and the development
of a preferred dimensional orientation. Underlying this deformation is
the movement of dislocations and the generation of defect structures that
contribute to the creep behaviour in polycrystalline ice. However, single
crystals of ice have a very strong plastic anisotropy, as glide is several
orders of magnitude easier on basal systems than on non-basal systems.
An analogy is made to other hexagonal minerals such as quartz where the
most commonly reported slip system is in the basal plane.
When polycrystalline ice
is subjected to stress the deformation of individual grains is blocked
by neighbouring grains and this builds up internal stresses both in the
deforming grains and those around them. These stresses can be relieved
in a variety of ways, all of which play some part in the deformation,
namely:
- Non-uniform deformation
within a single grain can produce bending and the formation of undulose
extinction or kinking.
- Grains may slide over
one another and microcracks may be nucleated.
- Grain boundary migration
will occur, causing some grains to grow at the expense of others. This
process requires diffusion-controlled recovery, and may accompany the
intracrystalline glide.
- In regions which are highly
deformed recrystallisation occurs, with the nucleation and subsequent
growth of new grains, often more favourably oriented for basal slip.
This can occur repeatedly during deformation, and is known as dynamic
recrystallisation; this is accelerated by a decrease in grain size and
where the initial orientation of grains are at a maximum critical resolved
shear stress.
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